


Keep A Light On

by DarkFairytale



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Claustrophobia, Diego is a sweetheart, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Klaus deserves love, M/M, Spoilers, Stuttering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 20:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17856842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: "All these lights,” Klaus wafted his hand around. “They helped me sleep at night, and now, well now, I just have more grown up methods.” He popped the cigarette in his mouth. He let it dangle from his bottom lip as he struggled with his lighter.Diego watched Klaus' hands shake and his fingers fail to light it. Finally he showed pity, sighing heavily and moving forwards. He opened up Klaus’ fingers to take the lighter. It flickered to life under Diego’s surer fingers and he held it up to the end of Klaus’ cigarette to light it. He glanced up to find his brother watching him with his make-up darkened eyes.“I can’t believe I’m aiding your drug habit,” Diego muttered.“This is just a cigarette, relax, man, relax,” Klaus sucked on the cigarette and then held it out with a flourish.





	Keep A Light On

**Author's Note:**

> I binged The Umbrella Academy in two days. And have rewatched a number of scenes since. And I'm not gunna lie. I love it. I LOVE IT.
> 
> I really loved the scenes between Klaus and Ben, obviously, but I also really, really loved all the brotherly scenes between Klaus and Diego; the lifts in Diego's car, the escapades in the ice cream truck, the comforting, saving each other from the house collapse, tying shoe laces and tying Klaus to a chair (I'm still sad that that day got reversed). I wanted to write a little something about Klaus and Diego's friendship, and add in some bonus Ben, because he is a deceased cinnamon roll.

Klaus ran through the hallway, heading towards seven bedrooms.

He would bypass his own. He didn’t want to be alone. He couldn’t be alone. He’d been alone for days. Their father had locked him up for days.

He couldn’t go to Ben, who would have been his first choice. Ben wouldn’t be in his room. He was Number 6, and with Number 5 gone, Number 6 started his one-on-one ‘training’ the second that their father had tired of torturing Number 4.

Speaking of which; Klaus didn’t even bother looking into Number 5’s room. Number 5 was gone. He wasn’t there. Not anymore. Maybe he had had the right idea.

He passed Vanya’s bedroom door. She was in it; he could hear her practicing the violin through it. But Klaus couldn’t go to her either. Vanya didn’t have powers, so she just wouldn’t understand. He didn’t want to burden her with his power problems when she had so many problems because she _didn’t_ have them.

He did not bother going to the end of the corridor to look into Luther and Allison’s rooms. If they were in there, they would be together and they wouldn’t have time for him and his perceived ‘over-exaggeration’. They didn’t understand what it was like to have powers that could hurt or scare them; not like Klaus did, or Ben did.

So that only left one bedroom that Klaus could go to.

He barged into Diego’s room and threw himself on the bed.

His brother only just managed to pull his legs up the mattress and out of the way of Klaus’ body in time.

“Klaus?” Diego shouted, half-angry, half-surprised, “W-what the hell are you d-doing?”

“I didn’t want to be alone,” Klaus choked, feeling in a safe enough space, away from their father, to break down, just a little bit. Just a little.

“And you c-couldn’t go and b-bother someone else?” Diego sounded highly irritated.

After Ben, Diego was the sibling that Klaus relied upon the most. The only problem was, like two ends of a magnet, Diego was at times tolerant of company, and other times repelled it. Sometimes the three of them - he, Diego and Ben - would work together as well as bread, peanut butter and jelly. And sometimes it would just be Klaus and Ben. Diego was a dedicated student, a keen participant of the Umbrella Academy because he knew he had the power to help people. But sometimes he would defy his dedication to the cause if Klaus or Ben were upset, for the very same reason; because he wanted to help people. It was sometimes hard to tell which side Diego would choose; sympathy or tough-love, so it had been a gamble, coming to Diego for comfort, but Klaus was too in need of kind, living company to care.

Klaus couldn’t reply to Diego’s question. He was already crying too hard.

“Klaus?” Diego didn’t sound irritated anymore. Shocked concern laced his tone. “Klaus w-what’s wrong?” It was a heavy concern that was far too mature for a thirteen year old boy.

Klaus’ tears were too painful and familiar for a thirteen year old boy. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he cried into Diego’s pillow. “Don’t make me leave, don’t leave me alone.”

He felt Diego’s hand come to rest lightly on his shoulder, unsure. It was a hand that had been cut and sliced by many a knife during his training sessions. Diego knew what pain his powers could bring too. He would understand. Maybe. Or he might call Klaus a coward like their father did.

“Klaus, t-t-tell me,” Diego sounded really worried, now. “What’s wrong?”

“Dad locked me up again,” Klaus cried, “In the dark. In the dark with all of them screaming at me, they were all screaming at me.”

“Where d-d-did he lo-lock you?” Diego asked. His stutter always worsened when he was emotional. It didn’t sound like he was going to call Klaus a coward, so Klaus decided to tell him.

“In the mausoleum,” Klaus sobbed into the soft fabric of the pillow. “Where they can find me more easily. But they find me everywhere. In the dark. When I’m alone in the dark they find me.”

He felt his brother shift on the bed but he didn’t look up. Diego got off the bed and Klaus heard him shut the door so that their brothers and sisters, their father, and not even their mom or Pogo could see Klaus so upset. They both knew that their father would be angry if he heard that Klaus had been upset. Diego then climbed back onto the bed, moving Klaus so that Klaus was curled up half in Diego’s lap and Diego wrapped him tentatively in his arms.

Although they were all exactly the same age, there had always been a bit of an age order. From Luther down to Vanya, one down to seven, their numbers as Umbrella Academy kids had given them all a rank, which they had, at some point, adapted to as their version of age order. Diego was Number 2, so he often treated all but Luther as younger than him. It meant he was protective, when he needed to be.

“Hey, Klaus,” Diego murmured, stroking his hand through Klaus’ hair. “It’s o-ok. You aren’t in the d-dark n-now. You’re with me.”

Klaus nodded. He had a curled fist pressed to his lips, attempting to swallow back the sobs, and wrapped his other arm around one of Diego’s legs because it happened to be closest, his head pressed to Diego’s chest, under his brother’s chin. It took a while, it felt like a lifetime, but Klaus finally began to calm down, hiccupping every so often. Diego didn’t say anything the whole time, but he was there and he wasn’t going anywhere and that was what mattered.

“Are you af-af-afraid of the dark?” Diego asked, finally, when Klaus’ sadness had faded to silence.

“Only because they are there,” Klaus whispered into his own fist, eyes wide and staring. “When I try to go to sleep…I’ve been so tired…” 

“Then we need to g-get rid of them.”

“How?” Klaus groused with a sniff, squinting up at his brother’s chin. “We can’t. They're already dead.”

“There are other w-ways to g-get rid,” Diego said, adamantly. “Leave it wi-with me.”

Klaus didn’t know what Diego was planning, or even if it would work, because he wasn’t quite sure if Diego truly knew how Klaus’ powers worked. But he was grateful nonetheless. He sighed. “Thanks Diego.”

“Don’t m-mention it.”

“But I really…”

“S-seriously, Klaus. Don’t m-mention this t-to anyone.”

“Not even Ben?”

Diego huffed a laugh. “O-ok. Maybe Ben.”

Two days later, Klaus found a little lamp sitting on his bedside table, and a string of fairy lights that must have been snagged from some decorations box somewhere; certainly not from their house, their father didn't do trivial holidays. The fairy lights twinkled like stars and the lampshade was white, except for the black mask of the Umbrella Academy that Diego must have drawn on.

With his night lights, Klaus was never left alone in the dark, and it meant that he could sleep in peace. Like Diego had asked, Klaus never mentioned the lights, but he knew that Diego knew that he put them on each night.

Over the years Klaus added to that lampshade just as much as he added doodles to his walls. He coloured the lampshade in brighter and brighter patterns and colours as his tastes became more eccentric and fun. When more and more dead faces came to visit he added more and more lamps to the room and slept with them all on. He drew tentacles on his lampshade from Diego, for Ben, because he liked the idea of the tentacles keeping the dead at bay, but after Ben died and started complaining about the shade decoration, Klaus changed it again. He coloured the lampshade some more; a little psychedelic after he started to find more permanent ways to keep the dead away; a little puff of something here, a little pill there. But still he kept that light on every single night, his room bathed in interesting colours.

Number 5 was gone, Number 6 was dead, Number 3 was ready to move on to stardom, but was hanging on a bit longer for Number 1, who would not leave. Number 7 could and should have left years ago.

Number 2 left the house when they turned seventeen.

Klaus didn’t have much – any, really – reason to stay. Daddy dearest could go and fuck himself, quite frankly. And so Number 4 left too. And the lamp was turned off for a long, long time.

***

Diego walked through hallways he remembered like it was yesterday, peering into rooms that hadn’t changed in all those years; Mom had kept them exactly as they had been left. It looked the same. It didn’t feel the same.

It wasn’t home anymore. This big vast mansion of a house that had contained his family felt like less of a home than his boiler room apartment in the back of the boxing gym.

He stopped at the doorway to Klaus’ room, filled with fairy lights and lamps that were all switched off. His eyes found that crazy coloured lamp, the black of the mask that Diego had originally drawn on it for him was still there, just surrounded by wavy tentacles and pretty bright patterns and spirals. Diego had almost forgotten it after all this time. He and Klaus had never talked about it; not the day Klaus had come to him in tears, not when Diego left the lamp and lights in Klaus’ room. Just like Diego had asked, Klaus hadn’t mentioned it. But the lamp was still there, after all these years, even if Klaus wasn’t quite altogether there anymore.

“Diego, brother mine,” speak of the devil; Klaus twirled around Diego and into his bedroom. “Ah,” Klaus said, opening his arms out, face tipped to the ceiling, “The old place never changes, huh? Home terrible home.”

“Don’t let Mom hear you say that,” Diego said, watching Klaus wander around, inspecting things as he walked his fingers over objects and surfaces. "You know she's house-proud."

Klaus did not reply. His fingers had reached the lamp. “Must keep this on,” Klaus murmured to himself. “It keeps me safe.”

“And yet you put yourself in danger every single time you poison yourself.”

“No, no, no,” Klaus disagreed, switching the lamp on, sending colours across the room. “See? I’m safe now.”

Diego scoffed. “It’s just a lamp.”

“It’s more than 'just a lamp',” Klaus said, “And you know that, Diego.” He pulled a pouch out of his jacket pocket and sat down on the bed. He started rolling himself a cigarette against his thigh. “All these lights,” Klaus wafted his hand around. “They helped me sleep at night, and now, well now, I just have more grown up methods.” He popped the cigarette in his mouth. He let it dangle from his bottom lip as he struggled with his lighter.

Diego watched Klaus' hands shake and his fingers fail to light it. Finally he showed pity, sighing heavily and moving forwards. He knelt before Klaus and opened up Klaus’ fingers to take the lighter. It flickered to life under Diego’s surer fingers and he held it up to the end of Klaus’ cigarette to light it. He glanced up to find his brother watching him with his make-up darkened eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m aiding your drug habit,” Diego muttered.

“This is just a cigarette, relax, man, relax,” Klaus sucked on the cigarette and then held it out with a flourish. He shuffled himself backwards until his back met the wall and idly patted the spot on the bed beside him.

Diego raised a sceptical eyebrow at him. His brother was different. All of Diego’s brothers and sisters were different to how they used to be. But while Luther had grown big and Allison had grown famous and Vanya had grown…well, maybe not so much. But Klaus? Klaus had spiralled.

Diego remembered the sensitive child that had run to his room for comfort. Klaus was still sensitive, and yet completely desensitized by drugs and drink. His brother had become a junkie that could not be trusted with money, with making decisions, or even to _stay_ in one place.

“You need to clean up your act, Klaus. If you want any of us to take you seriously,” Diego spoke his mind, but he humoured Klaus’ wish and sat beside him on the bed. 

Klaus chuckled, “Like any of you would listen to what I have to say regardless,” he said, voice lilting softly.

He leaned his head against Diego’s shoulder. Diego decided not to shrug it off.

“At least you are still the same, Diego,” Klaus said, as though he was relieved that more than just the house had stayed the same. “You’re still sweet and sour.”

Diego waited until the cloud of smoke from Klaus’ lips cleared before asking what the hell he was talking about.

“Sweet and sour, our Diego,” Klaus said, waving his hand around, cigarette held delicately between two fingers. “You offer comfort, you say we have to grow stronger…” Diego was about to ask who ‘we’ were, but Klaus was not stopping; “You want our company, you don’t want company. You hate our daddy but adore our mom. You help me light my cigarette, you complain I am poisoning myself, you make me a special lamp, you say it’s ‘just a lamp’, you act like you don’t like me anymore, but you’ll sit with me here. You act like you don’t care, but you do.”

Diego let the words wash over him, and then weighed them to see how true they were. Maybe Klaus had him spot-on.

“If I’m sweet and sour,” Diego allowed, “What are you?”

“Hmm,” Klaus hummed thoughtfully, tipping his head further to the side, rolling it on Diego’s shoulder until he had to be looking at the side of Diego’s face, studying him. Diego did not look to check. “Sugar,” Klaus said. And Diego did glance at him then, exasperated, to see Klaus smiling a shit-eating grin. “And spice,” Klaus said, taking a drag of the cigarette and blowing smoke to the air. “Lots of different spices.”

“Lots of different vices,” Diego grumbled.

“Ahh, wordplay. Excellent,” Klaus grinned, sitting back up again. “You know," he said after a little silence, sounding thoughtful. "If I’m going to be any use to whatever crazy shit Number 5 is babbling about, I’ll have to get rid of those vices, a bit, won’t I? Get clean, a little. Maybe.”

Diego refrained from rolling his eyes. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, bro.”

“And then I _will_ need to keep the light on,” Klaus said. “To keep the ghosties away.”

“Ok, Klaus,” Diego sighed, wondering how much of what Klaus was saying was _Klaus,_ and how much of it was whatever was still in his system. “Whatever you say.”

The lamp got destroyed when Vanya destroyed the house. And Mom. And Pogo. 

***

They went back in time to try and fix the mess they had made. Klaus had conjured Ben. Finally, _finally,_ his family knew that he wasn’t crazy. That Ben had been with him the whole time. That Ben had been with them, too.

They had a quiet moment to recuperate, back in the past. Allison was already working on building bridges with Vanya, Luther was having to start from scratch, after his monumental mistake that had had him hunched over and positively _small_ with guilt. Number 5 was plotting and planning. And so Klaus found Diego to distract for a while.

He found Diego sitting on a bench and slumped down beside him, still exhausted from all that apocalypse and conjuring-his-dead-brother business.

“So I think I owe you an apology,” Diego said. “For not quite listening. For not taking you seriously.”

“Hey,” Klaus leaned over to prod him in the arm. “You listened more than the rest.”

“I didn’t realise quite how much you relied on the drugs to block them out.”

“But it wasn’t the right way to go about it,” Klaus considered. “All I ever really needed was a light in the dark.”

“And a good friend to have your back,” Diego said. “A brother.”

Klaus knew that Diego was not talking about himself. He was talking about Ben. Klaus glanced to the side, to where Ben was perched on the back of the bench, on Diego’s other side. Bread, peanut butter and jelly back together again, sandwiched on a bench.

“Ben has really been with you?” Diego asked, looking down at the knife he was turning relentlessly over and over in his hands, maybe still debating whether he had been right not to finish off Cha-Cha with one of them. Not that that mattered now, really, because that was in the future. “All this time?”

“Oh yes,” Klaus grinned at Ben over Diego’s head. “He enjoyed our escapades in the ice cream truck very much.”

“Tell him I agreed with him about the drugs,” Ben inputted.

Klaus rolled his eyes. “He also agreed with you that I needed to stay clean.”

Diego glanced at him, lips quirking into a small smile. “Will you let him know that I miss him?”

Klaus looked over Diego’s shoulder. Ben was looking at their brother sadly.

“Tell him I miss him too,” Ben said.

“He’s right here, you know,” Klaus told Diego. “You just told him yourself.” He nudged Diego with his elbow. “He misses you too.”

“Thanks for saving my life,” Diego said, “Twice.”

“Ben says that that is…”

“Not just Ben,” Diego interrupted. “And while I’m grateful Ben, I really am,” he was quick to amend, “You did too, Klaus. Ben wouldn’t be here at all - have saved me at all - if it weren’t for you.” His smile grew as he looked at Klaus. “You conjured him, bro.”

“He’s a light in the dark,” Klaus said, smiling at Diego and then at Ben, who returned it, looking glossy-eyed. “It’s why I have to stay clean, now,” Klaus said. “If I turn on all those dazzling lights even the nice bits in the darkness can’t find me.” Ben would be gone again. And Klaus still had to find Dave. He had to keep clean so he could see his beautiful Dave again. “All I need is one lamp.” Klaus reached into his pocket to retrieve a cigarette. “And maybe a light.”

Diego smacked the cigarette out of his hand and Klaus tipped his head back and cackled. Ben snorted and shoved Klaus off the bench. Diego stared down at where Klaus had been quite literally pushed by thin-air.

“Ben?” Diego asked, startled.

“I am going to regret giving him this ability,” Klaus groaned from the ground.

“Hey,” Ben said, affronted, “You weren’t complaining when I helped you with _my_ ability. You would all have been toast.”

“Toast, shmoast,” Klaus grumbled, clambering back onto the bench.

“Toast?” Diego asked, utterly confused at only hearing half the conversation.

“Good idea!” Klaus grinned, holding up an imaginary glass in his hand. “A toast to keeping the light on.”

“Here’s to that,” Ben agreed.

Diego rolled his eyes, the sour showing, before the sweet returned, and he held up his own invisible glass.

“This does not mean I condone you drinking again,” Diego said.

“Oh this? This is just ghost alcohol. You can’t see it.”

“You’re an asshole,” Ben inputted helpfully.

Klaus gave him the finger, before clinking his invisible glass against Diego’s. And although Diego couldn't see it, Ben clinked his invisible glass against theirs too.

“Here’s to keeping the light on,” Diego said.

“Particularly if it’s a blue light from my fists that conjures Ben for fighting bad guys.”

“Yeah,” Diego agreed, as Ben shoved Klaus off the bench again. “That’s a pretty good light.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Comments, kudos and bookmarks are the fuel that keeps me typing, so thank you in advance for any of those! Thanks for reading!


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